High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill (Fifth sitting)

David Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Sir Simon Burns]

The hon. Gentleman nods his head in a negative way, but he is wrong. The investment of £38 billion in CP5 is not 100% taxpayers’ money. As I said, part of it is rent accrued from the rail operators, which pay to use the track.

Since privatisation, there has been a will and determination to invest, as well as the actual delivery of investment, to bring our railways up to scratch. The process is time-consuming, sadly, because of the problems arising from the earlier lack of investment. The other sad thing for rail users is that a lot of the investment that is badly needed to improve journey times and the reliability of the service is not seen immediately by them. New rolling stock is immediately seen by commuters and travellers, obviously, and they benefit from it, but when we improve and upgrade the track or the overhead cables on that part of the railway that is being electrified, users do not see the outcome of the investment in the same way. However, such investment is still critical to improving the performance of our railways. I am confident that that will continue.

The hon. Member for Middlesbrough mentioned the east coast main line. I would be the first to accept that it was a well-run part of the network, but it was run under Directly Operated Railways because the last Labour Government rightly withdrew the franchise from the franchisee because there was dissatisfaction with the way it was operating the line. DOR is an emergency mechanism that was introduced in the legislation on privatising the railways because there is a legal requirement for the railways to provide a service all the time. To avoid a hiatus if there is a problem with the franchise, DOR will, for a fixed period of time only, step in to ensure continuity of service.

The hon. Gentleman kept talking about a state-run service. I suppose that DOR could, by definition, be called state-run, but it was not meant to run the line for ever. Even the Labour Transport Secretary who took the action made it plain at the time that there was not going to be a never-ending provision of service by DOR.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I accept what the right hon. Gentleman says about the background, but DOR ran the line successfully. The Labour party recognises that and has learned from that experience. We now say that it is something that should be used in the future, which is why we opposed the refranchising last year.

[Sir Simon Burns]

I am sadly well aware of the Labour party’s proposals for that provider to continue to provide the service. Frankly, I have every confidence that the conglomerate, which includes Virgin, that has taken it over will provide a first-class service. Based on passenger satisfaction, Virgin does so on the west coast main line. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman remembers the fiasco of the refranchising of the west coast main line in the summer and early autumn of 2012. The passengers—for want of a better expression, it was people power—were amazed that Virgin’s franchise was not renewed. Ultimately, because of the problems that emerged, Virgin continued to run it, and I have every confidence that it will run a first-class service on the east coast main line.

Let me give the Committee an example of the way that franchisers can innovate to respond to the needs of local people. I am sure Committee members are aware—if they are not, the Minister will be more than aware—that there has never been a direct service between Scarborough and London in the lifetime of the railways. Why should Scarborough, where there is a demand for such a service, be so deprived? Virgin is responding to the marketplace and the wishes of customers, and from 2018 it will run a direct service from Scarborough to London. That is how franchisers can respond to changing circumstances and demands.

Similarly, Opposition Members will be aware that High Speed 1 is currently run by a private company. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough looks perplexed and is consulting his colleagues, but I chose my words very carefully: High Speed 1 is currently operated by a private operator. I see no reason why it should be returned to the public sector. I fundamentally do not believe that politicians and Governments are best equipped to run services and industries such as the railways. Our experience of their doing so was poor. Notwithstanding the problems and the need to improve our infrastructure, on balance, investment has been provided and work is being carried out to improve our rail services to make them into a first-class service in the private sector. I believe that that is where they should remain.

It would be a mistake if High Speed 2 were to be shackled before the first train had run on the tracks by being run, in effect, by the Government as a nationalised industry. If there is a Division on this contentious issue, I urge my colleagues to reject this opportunistic new clause. It is very much in keeping with the new politics of the Corbynista regime which, as in many other areas, is totally divorced from the best interests of the British people.

[Mr Anderson]

It is a great pleasure to be here, Mr Chope. I hope to see you at the weekend in the Orkney islands, with any luck. I would like to clarify a few points raised by the right hon. Member for Chelmsford. For the record, he praised Virgin’s role on west coast. Virgin is the brand name of the east coast main line at the moment, but Virgin has only 10% of the franchise. The other 90% is owned by Stagecoach, which they are trying to keep a very closely held secret because of Stagecoach’s horrendous record when it comes to transport in this country.

The right hon. Gentleman said that British Rail in various guises had failed. Nobody doubts that. No one on the Opposition Benches is saying that it was a success, but what has to be understood is that of the 46 years that it was in public ownership, 32 of those years were under a Tory Government. One of the main reasons why the trains were never improved was that we as a nation inherited very poor quality stock and a poor system of stations, and the truth is that Governments chose to dip in and dip out of supporting the railways, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly said. He is right that they were not run very well. However, I would argue that whatever the successes or failures of the past 20 years of privatisation have been, people have learned lessons. The east coast main line is an example of how people took some of the good of what they had learned from privatisation and put it into service on the east coast, which became the best service in the whole of Britain.

The right hon. Gentleman misquoted when he said that neither Blair nor Brown supported reprivatisation. What he meant was that they did not support renationalisation, and that is actually correct. They were opposed to going backwards, quite apart from the fact that they thought it would be a diversion of money that could be spent elsewhere on putting right a lot of things that failed under 18 years of Tory government. They chose not to do it, and they did not want to do it. The truth about Railtrack is that the Government were forced to do it, and I will tell the Committee why. On 19 September 1997 the Southall rail crash took place. A friend of mine was in that crash. He was given the last rites twice, but thankfully he survived. On 5 October 1999 the Paddington rail crash occurred. Another friend of mine was involved and, sadly, he was one of 31 people who died. On 17 September 2000 the Hatfield rail crash took place, and on 10 May 2002 the Potters Bar rail crash occurred. A common theme through all of them was the failure of Railtrack to maintain the tracks properly.

I work with people who worked with me in the coal mines in the ’70 and ’80s. They went on to be contractors and subcontractors repairing rails. They told me some nightmare stories of the work they were involved in. We used to have railways underground. I was a mechanic looking after trains underground, so I have some experience of how to look after railways properly. Some of the things they were telling me were nightmares. There used to be a standard in this country that every length of rail had to be changed once every 40 years, regardless of its condition. That was the maximum length of time a rail could be left in place. One thing which happened almost immediately after privatisation was that that was changed to rails being replaced once every 80 years. That was the mental attitude of the people to whom we gave away our railway system, and who we allowed to run our trains. Is it any wonder that things went wrong? Railtrack had to be brought back into public ownership to protect the travelling public from the shortcomings that were clearly occurring.

The east coast franchise went first to GNER, which ran it for some time. It was a reasonable service, but its parent company, Sea Containers, was going belly-up. Overnight, GNER pulled out of the franchise. Who had to come in? The Government had to step in. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it was right and proper to pick up the pieces and keep it running. They kept it running and it was franchised out again to National Express, but the National Express experience was appalling. They ran the trains the same way as they ran the buses. The hygiene, punctuality—every part went backwards, and again the public sector had to walk in. When National Express walked away—they were not thrown out; they walked away because they were failing—Directly Operated Railways became the most successful train line in the country.